Sudan’s Bashir approves aid access for South Sudan famine areas

President Omar Al-Bashir has ordered Sudanese authorities to help in delivering international humanitarian aid to famine-ravaged South Sudan, an official confirmed yesterday.

South Sudan is currently the world’s youngest nation after it was formed following a split from the north of the country in 2011.

Earlier this week, South Sudan declared famine in some of its regions stating that over 100,000 people faced starvation while another million were on the brink of famine.

“President Omar Al-Bashir has ordered Sudanese authorities to offer all necessary facilities to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches South Sudan through Sudanese territories,” Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour explained in the statement.

Ghandour further stated that Bashir had made the order of assistance to all NGOs as well as to UN aid agencies and other countries attempting to deliver supplies to the crisis-driven South.

“This is to ease the suffering of the South Sudanese people,” the minister explained.

Human rights groups have condemned the South Sudanese government for creating a “man-made” famine caused by the bloodshed in South Sudan where the civil war has forced people to flee the violence and prevented  aid agencies from helping some of the worst-hit areas.

The civil war has been raging on since 2013, after President Salva Kiir accused his rival and former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup to overthrow him from power.

More than 300,000 South Sudanese refugees have arrived in Sudan since the civil war began, the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR has confirmed.

Over 65 per cent of the refugees are children, with many of them suffering from severe malnutrition.

UN aid officials are carefully monitoring the Sudan-South Sudan border for the influx of thousands more fleeing due to the famine situation and ongoing violence.